Design notes and general musings from "Distant Star Games," which is really just Ewen Cluney (aka Neko Ewen). Stuff about whatever games I'm working on, games I'm reading or playing, and RPG-related stuff I'm thinking about.

Monday, March 06, 2006

[In-Character] Truth & Justice, Episode 5

Today we won. It doesn't feel like it, but we won. I would gain nothing from killing Pinnacle, but knowing that he somehow escaped is gnawing at me.

It was a strange day, with a lot of waiting. Apparently Raz does comprehend the idea that swimming is best learned by starting in the shallow end of the pool rather than the depths of the ocean, because when I went to the training room he actually explained things. Which means yesterday he must've been testing me. For what I can't say. His heart is (mostly) in the right place, but he's infuriating sometimes.

Going shopping before a super battle is a surreal experience. Sam went to a toy store for a massive squirt gun, while Jack wanted to go to a hardware store. Raz managed to get himself kicked out, and apparently decided to "punish" the store manager for not wanting to sell a chainsaw to an unstable-looking 16-year-old by stealing his wallet. Irony abounds, and I was too amused to get angry. Dynamo stayed as far away from the superhero aisle in the toy store as he could without letting it be obvious.

We lured Pinnacle out to a car lot near where he'd wanted us to come. His skill was... unreal. I just couldn't touch him, and Raz didn't fare any better. (Raz seems to have a hard time with the idea that someone in the world could be more skilled than him). Dynamo managed to score a good hit, but still not enough to really faze Pinnacle. It was a combined effort--Jack teleported Pinnacle into a half-crushed car, and Raz and I combined our efforts to stomp on it from above--that brought the confrontation (I hesitate to call it a "battle") to an abrupt end. Still, there was absolutely no sign of Pinnacle, and no reason to believe he isn't still alive. His cloned soldiers vanished in front of our eyes, and the only thing left in the warehouse was a laptop whose contents were sealed away with military-grade encryption. He knows us a little too well--he might even have surveillance capability matching or exceeding our access to street and satellite cameras--and he's still at large. The only good thing here is that for the moment he's more interested in us than he is in hurting innocents, but then he knows that's something he can leverage against us.

And another thing: I need a new motorcycle. It hadn't occurred to me that the Mega-Rider armor weighing over 500 pounds means my bike can't possibly support it. If I was operating out of Tokyo I might be able to lay my hands on dad's old Fenrir II, but for the moment I'm out of luck. The armor's weight has been reduced with its recently modified form, but not nearly enough to ride an ordinary dirt bike. And besides, especially for superheroing, that kind of horsepower could actually come in handy. And don't get me started about the new Fenrir VIII.

I'm not sure if I should, but I want to call home, to see if mom is okay. There could be some kind of trap set for me already, but what choice do I have, really? Maybe there's a way to use the resources at our HQ to make a call untraceable...

[OOC: I can't help but be reminded of the closing number from Once More, With Feeling: "The battle's done and we kind of won / So we sound our victory cheer. / Where do we go from here?"]